Sunday, February 26, 2012

Chips and Oreos!

Despite my goal of trying to eat healthier, I've been really loving Lane Gold's Vegan Junk Food cookbook. In my last two posts, I showed you healthier versions of vegan entrees, like tandoori tofu pizza and takeout orange tofu. Those were amazing, but they didn't feel too much like junk food to justify eating those dishes for dinner.

But in my final Vegan Junk Food review post, I wanted to show you some of the real junk food from the book. You know, the stuff you can only eat once in awhile because it really is junk food. I made two of these recipes from the book for a vegan potluck at my friend Leslie's this weekend. I always feel better sharing the less healthy food at potlucks because everyone else can help you eat it, and you can all feel equally guilty.

The Baked Onion Dip from Vegan Junk Food was hit at the potluck!

OMG, y'all. This stuff tastes like the creamy, fatty French onion dip from your childhood, but it's even better because it's baked and covered in vegan cheese! I could have eaten the entire dish. The onions were caramelized and sweet, and the dip was made creamy with vegan cream cheese and mayo. Perfect with Kettle Brand Salt & Pepper chips.

For my dessert, I made the Oreo Chocolate Truffles:

But I made them with the new limited edition BIRTHDAY CAKE OREOS!!!!!!! Have y'all seen these? They're Oreos, but the creamy stuff has rainbow sprinkles and it tastes like birthday cake! Never have I been happier that Oreos are vegan.

Anyway, I crumbled the birthday cake Oreos in a food processor and mixed them with vegan cream cheese. Then it's dipped in chocolate. So delicious. So sinful. Yea for Vegan Junk Food!

In the UK Oreos aren't vegan [sobs] luckily I'm traveling in Cambodia, but didn't realise that the oreos here were vegan, for a whole month! They have Chocolate, strawberry and blueberry ice cream flavour! Rest assured I'm making up for it with soy milk and cookies every day now! Birthday Sprinkle Oreo's is too amazing!! Those little chocolate oreo creations look so perfect!

I ran, ran, ran to the store to get this cookbook after I read about it on your blog. So far have made the delectable cinnamon roll french toast and the Pesto (Gardein) Chicken Pizza with Creamy Garlic Sauce. It was so good, I'm drooling right now thinking about it. Love this cookbook!

I'm pretty sure Birthday Cake Oreos are not vegan. They have confectioners glaze (which always comes from bugs). I'm not saying that a tiny amount of bug juice is really a big problem, but you might not want to be telling people that they are vegan when they aren't.

I was just told, and just reviewed the ingredients. In Europe, and possibly elsewhere abroad, Oreos contain whey powder which is definitely NOT vegan. Boooooo!

Answer: it depends on your stance on refined sugar.

Backstory: a few years ago, Kraft, the maker of Oreo Cookie sandwiches bought out Hydrox Cookies and reformulated their Oreo cookies. They removed all dairy elements, and with a serious glance, the ingredient list looked vegan (unlike Soft Batch Cookies that switched their packaging to include “dairy flavors,” sigh). Vegans of the world rejoiced and began dipping seriously into their collective soy/rice/almond/hemp/… milk glasses. But some vegans questioned the sourcing of the Kraft sugars. One of those vegans is Vegeta-Lou. She contacted Kraft and just got word back. You can read the full emails here, but I’ll give you the summary.

Kraft has several sugar suppliers. Some of our suppliers DO use the animal-derived natural charcoal (also known as “bone char”) in their cane sugar refining process and some suppliers DO NOT use this process.

There you have it. The ingredients are all vegan, but the processing of their sugars can involve bone char.

Thanks Anonymous! Pretty interesting. I'm not usually too concerned with refined sugar (I just try not to think about it), but I eat so little of it (maybe an Oreo every 3 or 4 months), I don't stress. But I know some vegans are better about that stuff than me. :-)

My name is Bianca ...

About Me

I'm a 9-year vegan, 19-year vegetarian from the Mid-South, not too far from the muddy banks of the Mississippi River. And that means cornbread, butter beans, and collard greens.
These days, I live in Memphis. Check out my cookbook — Cookin' Crunk. It's filled with yummilicious veganized soul food and country classics.